The President of the Senate, Dr Ahmad Lawan, took the lead at the National Assembly on Tuesday when he received the first jab of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
The vaccine was administered on him in his fourth floor office by his personal physician, Dr Muhammad Usman, while the vaccination card was presented to him by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health (Secondary and Tertiary), Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe.
Speaking shortly after receiving the jab, Lawan called for more advocacy and sensitization on the vaccine, appealing to Nigerians to make themselves available for the vaccination.
He congratulated the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 for working so hard to ensure that the vaccine is available for Nigerians.
While urging the PTF to get more of the vaccine and variety of it in addition to AstraZeneca, he reiterated the need to make the vaccine available in different crannies of this country.
Lawan said: ”I urge all Nigerians especially those within the range specified by the health authorities and those at the front line that we make ourselves available. Let the vaccine not be limited to areas that are accessible only. We have areas that are not very much accessible in the riverine areas in the Niger Delta, in the northern most part of the country, the de-sertified areas.
“We need to reach out to the people. We should convince them. We should use the system that we have used before in getting our people vaccinated over the year. Our traditional rulers, our traditional institutions have played very significant roles in enlightenment. Our clergies. Our imams. This is something that we have to do because Nigeria is not an island. We are part of the global community. I believe that at the end of the day, we can only achieve the hard immunity that is desired if we are able to reach at least 70 to 75 per cent of those that are supposed to be vaccinated in the country.”
